Thinking Yes. He did beat me while he ‐ he (Listen,' Shreve said, cried.
'It would be while he would be lying in a bedroom of that private house in Corinth after Pittsburg Landing while his shoulder got well two years later and the letter from the octoroon (maybe even the one that contained the photograph of her and the child) finally overtaking him, wailing for money and telling him that the lawyer had departed for Texas or Mexico or somewhere at last and that she (the octoroon) could not find his mother either and so without doubt the lawyer had murdered her before he stole the money, since it would be just like both of them to flee or get themselves killed without providing for her at all.) ‐ Yes, they knew now. And Jesus, think of him, Bon, who had wanted to know, who had had the most reason to want to know, who as far as he knew had never had any father but had been created somehow between that woman who wouldn't let him play with other children, and that lawyer who even told the woman whether or not each time she bought a piece of meat or a loaf of bread ‐ two people neither of whom had taken pleasure or found passion in getting him or suffered pain and travail in horning him ‐ who perhaps if one of the two had only told him the truth, none of what happened would ever have come to pass; while there was Henry who had father and security and contentment and all, yet was told the truth by both of them while he (Bon) was told by neither. And think of Henry, who had said at first it was a lie and then when he knew it was not a lie had still said "I don't believe it," who had found even in that "I don't believe it" enough of strength to repudiate home and blood in order to champion his defiance, and in which championing he proved his contention to be the false one and was more than ever interdict against returning home; Jesus, think of the load he had to carry, born of two Methodists (or of one long invincible line of Methodists) and raised in provincial North Mississippi, faced with incest, incest of all things that might have been reserved for him, that all his heredity and training had to rebel against on principle, and in a situation where he knew that neither incest nor training was going to help him solve it. So that maybe when they left and walked the streets that night and at last Bon said, "Well? Now what?" Henry said, "Wait. Wait. Let me get used to it."
And maybe it was two days or three days, and Henry said, "You shall not. Shall not" and then it was Bon that said, "Wait. I am your older brother: do you say shall not to me?" And maybe it was a week, maybe Bon took Henry to see the octoroon and Henry looked at her and said, "Aint that enough for you?" and Bon said, "Do you want it to be enough?" and Henry said, "Wait. Wait. I must have time to get used to it.
You will have to give me time." Jesus, think how Henry must have talked during that winter and then that spring with Lincoln elected and the Alabama convention and the South began to draw out of the Union, and then there were two presidents in the United States and the telegraph brought the news about Charleston and Lincoln called out his army and it was done, irrevocable now, and Henry and Bon already decided to go without having to consult one another, who would have gone anyway even if they had never seen one another but certainly now, because after all you don't waste a war ‐ think how they must have talked, how Henry would say, "But must you marry her? Do you have to do it?" and Bon would say, "He should have told me. He should have told me, myself, himself. I was fair and honorable with him. I waited. You know now why I waited. I gave him every chance to tell me himself. But he didn't do it. If he had, I would have agreed and promised never to see her or you or him again.
But he didn't tell me. I thought at first it was because he didn't know. Then I knew that he did know, and still I waited. But he didn't tell me. He just told you, sent me a message like you send a command by a nigger servant to a beggar or a tramp to clear out. Dont you see that?" and Henry would say, "But Judith. Our sister. Think of her" and Bon: "All right. Think of her.
Then what?" because they both knew what Judith would do when she found it out because they both knew that women will show pride and honor about almost anything except love, and Henry said, "Yes. I see. I understand. But you will have to give me time to get used to it. You are my older brother; you can do that little for me." Think of the two of them: Bon who didn't know what he was going to do and had to say, pretend, he did; and Henry who knew what he was going to do and had to say he didn't. Then it was Christmas again, then 1861, and they hadn't heard from Judith because Judith didn't know for sure where they were because Henry wouldn't let Bon write to her yet; then they heard about the company, the University Grays, organizing up at Oxford and maybe they had been waiting for that. So they took the steamboat North again, and more gaiety and excitement on the boat now than Christmas even, like it always is when a war starts, before the scene gets cluttered up with bad food and wounded soldiers and widows and orphans, and them taking no part in it now either but standing at the rail again above the churning water, and maybe it would be two or three days, then Henry said suddenly, cried suddenly: "But kings have done it! Even dukes! There was that Lorraine duke named John something that married his sister. The Pope excommunicated him but it didn't hurt! It didn't hurt! They were still husband and wife. They were still alive. They still loved!" then again, loud, fast: "But you will have to wait! You will have to give me time! Maybe the war will settle it and we wont need to!" And maybe this was one place where your old man was right: and they rode into Oxford without touching Sutpen's Hundred and signed the company roster and then hid somewhere to wait, and Henry let Bon write Judith one letter; they would send it by hand, by a nigger that would steal into the quarters by night and give it to Judith's maid, and Judith sent the picture in the metal case and they rode on ahead to wait until the company got through making flags and riding about the state telling girls farewell and started for the front.
'Jesus, think of them. Because Bon would know what Henry was doing, just as he had always known what Henry was thinking since that first day when they had looked at one another. Maybe he would know all the better what Henry was doing because he did not know what he himself was going to do, that he would not know until all of a sudden some day it would burst clear and he would know then that he had known all the time what it would be, so he didn't have to bother about himself and so all he had to do was just to watch Henry trying to reconcile what he (Henry) knew he was going to do with all the voices of his heredity and training which said No. No. You cannot, You must not. You shall not.
Maybe they would even be under fire now, with the shells rushing and rumbling past overhead and bursting and them lying there waiting to charge and Henry would cry again, "But that Lorraine duke did it!
There must have been lots in the world who have done it that people don't know about, that maybe they suffered for it and died for it and are in hell now for it. But they did it and it don't matter now; even the ones we do know about are just names now and it don't matter now" and Bon watching him and listening to him and thinking It's because I don't know myself what I am going to do and so he is aware that I am undecided without knowing that he is aware. Perhaps if I told him now that I am going to do it, he would know his own mind and tell me, You shall not. And maybe your old man was right that time and they did think maybe the war would settle it and they would not have to themselves, or at least maybe Henry hoped it would because maybe your old man was right here too and Bon didn't care that since both of the two people Who could have given him a father had declined to do it, nothing mattered to him now, revenge or love or all, since he knew now that revenge could not compensate him nor love assuage. Maybe it wasn't even Henry who wouldn't let him write to Judith but Bon himself who did not write her because he didn't care about anything, not even that he didn't know yet what he was going to do. Then it was the next year and Bon was an officer now and they were moving toward Shilo without knowing that either, talking again as they moved along in column, the officer dropping back alongside the file in which the private marched and Henry crying again, holding his desperate and urgent voice down to undertone: "Dont you know yet what you are going to do?" while Bon would look at him for a moment with that expression which could have been smiling: "Suppose I told you I did not intend to go back to her?" and Henry would walk there beside him, with his pack and his eight feet of musket, and he would begin to pant, panting and panting while Bon watched him: "I am out in front of you a lot now; going into battle, charging, I will be out in front of you‐" and Henry panting, "Stop! Stop!" and Bon watching him with that faint thin expression about the mouth and eyes: "‐ and who would ever know? You would not even have to know for certain yourself, because who could say but what a Yankee ball might have struck me at the exact second you pulled your trigger, or even before ‐" and Henry panting and looking, glaring at the sky, with his teeth showing and the sweat on his face and the knuckles of the hand on his musket butt white, saying, panting, "Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!" Then it was Shilo, the second day and the lost battle and the brigade falling back from Pittsburgh Landing And listen,'